Isle of Real's theme is of spaces once inhabited, long since abandoned and reclaimed by the creep of nature.
The ten-track album is the first full-length release for an internationally renowned producer and label owner who has been creating and releasing music for over twenty years.
Isle of Real was written whilst on the road over several months. Nomadic writing sessions on planes and in hotel rooms lead to a collection of demos. These demos later took form in the studio of friend and peer Peder Mannerfelt, where a four day recording session in Stockholm shaped the spine of the album, with Mannerfelt acting as recording assistant. This sharing of resources also resulted in contributions from Roll the Dice on the album’s title track.
As an electronic music devotee who began his artistic career as the owner of a record store in his home town of Stockholm in the 90s, Pär Grindvik has been exploring the world of electronic music for two decades, a history audible on this release. Here Grindvik has gone back to the early UK and US techno labels which formed him as an artist; labels like Evolution, Fragile, Transmat, Network, Rising High and Irdial-Discs.
Isle of Real traverses deliberately between scenes of delicate electronica, tracks like ‘Never Give In’, 'Shine’ and 'Shelter' through into uptempo techno tracks like ‘Limits of Real’, ‘Holy Nothing’ and the anthemic ‘The Marlton’. Dark pools of ambience ‘Isle of Real’ and ‘Tide us Part’ bind the LP, whilst 'Headland' and 'Changes' build upon timeless techno blueprints.
As a body of work Isle of Real demonstrates Grindvik’s talent for melody, bearing hooks which thread through the LP, from its plains to its peaks, and which betray the producer’s mythical influences.